On Sunday Max came and the three of us - with Mama - went off about one o'clock to the launch ceremony of the Conservatoire's Jubilee. The stage, decked out in green cloth, looked very smart. At the front of the stage a table stretched right the way across, and behind it sat the most highly esteemed professors and members of the directorate. Behind them was the orchestra, and further back still an enormous choir dressed in white. The scene was ablaze with light, greenery, palms, flags and tricolour banner. The elegant audience was resplendent in white gowns and evening dress. The proceedings began with a telegram from the Tsar and a series of tedious speeches, and then Glazunov's Cantata, played twice (not that bad, in the end). Then distinguished visitors (about eighty of them), telegrams and S. Orlov's March, which failed to make much of an impression. The story behind this March is that a competition to write it was announced to students in the spring and aroused a good deal of interest. I myself considered writing one but lost interest when I realized then lengths I would have to go to in order to please the Conservatoire's directorate. In the autumn three of the marches were presented for consideration. One showed no talent at all, one was illiterate, and the third, a little less bad, was Orlov's. Glazunov rewrote it and re-orchestrated it, and that is the story of Orlov's March.